Once, there was a girl named Elhira and she was beautiful, so beautiful her mother hid her away in the darkest rooms of the house in fear that the forest wights would see her and curse her, or the Gods would steal her away for their own. She grew up in darkness, cared for by her family and doted upon by her mother who refused her nothing save her greatest wish; to go outside and feel the sun on her face. Elhira’s mother taught her about the gods, the spirits in the forest, which was a wild, dangerous place; full of twisted ever changing pathways, just as it is today. It was easy to fall prey to the old Forest God and his children, or to the beasts that lived under the trees. People, foolish people, would go out into the forest and try to leave a trail so that they could find their way home . B ut nothing worked. Trails of pebbles failed, marking the trees with charcoal and tying linen around the trunks failed, in fact all the ways the ancient people tried failed. The fore...
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So, the button has been pressed and the Kindle versions of the two books have been sent off to be fully processed and finally see 'print'. After that I'm going to get the paperback, print on demand, versions done so you can get them in dead tree versions. My friend Emma created a wonderful pair of covers for me (and she's going to have a steady flow of work from me now - as long as I'm self publishing she'll be my cover artist), and you can see that below. This is the cover for Forest Brides , a sort of Swords and Sorcery collection that focuses on the women dwelling in a huge forest, and the ways that they're free to grow and be who they want to be instead of being constrained by the rules of their society. I wrote this because I wanted to explore the various roles of women in myth, be that as mothers, monsters, witches, scapegoats, or psychopomps. I haven't quite finished with the area and there'll be a couple more books, at the very least, b...
Watching the events of the past couple of weeks has felt very strange. The Extinction Rebellion demonstrations have been heartfelt and passionate, and in a sense it's been great to see them. But... You knew that was coming, didn't you? Especially the ellipsis. I have a bit of a problem with any sort of demonstration, because I don't believe they actually achieve anything. I've seen too many good causes crash against the shore only to be stranded by the tide, achieving nothing because of the state's intransigence. A million people marched against the Iraq War, a similar number marched against Brexit, and nothing changed. Putting it bluntly, it seems to me that demonstrating is a futile exercise, one that may make the participants feel good about themselves but generally speaking has about as much affect in the real world as a fart in an empty lift. Putting my cards on the table, I agree with what Extinction Rebellion represent, and their aims (though...
I don't really know where to start with this, to be honest. The short version of what I want to post is that I've decided to self publish my work for a while, in order to build a market for my books and get it out there, hopefully earning some money in the process. That feels like an awfully mercenary thing to write, but sadly money is necessary to live, and I think my work is good enough to be paid for (you may disagree). So, I've decided to publish two large pieces, Forest Brides and A Strange and Sudden Fury in the near future. One, Forest Brides, is a book of short stories all about a magical group of women who dwell in a bonafide old forest and who share the energy of that place. The world thinks they're dead, and so they can come and go as they please and be whoever they want, free of the constraints that might be placed on them otherwise. Their world is a Bronze Age one, with large empires and tribes. I've tried hard to keep the stories foc...
Hi, long time no post. Things are going well, I'm glad to say. There's a petition on the UK government's site to revoke Article 50 and remain in the UK which has garnered nearly six million votes. The government has said that it will have to top 17.4 million to be seriously considered, which sounds like a challenge to me. This is the link: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584. If you haven't signed but want to keep the UK inside the biggest trading bloc on the planet, and which has laws to ensure workers and human rights no matter how flawed, and which legislates to improve our environment, therefore preserving our health please sign. If you aren't fussed, that's fine, but please give it serious thought.
So, I see that Google Plus is shutting down, which is a shame. I don't really do social media these days (I think I have a Twitter account but I don't really use it, and I'm on LinkedIn, which again, I don't really use. I wasn't really a prolific Google Plus user either but I liked what I saw and it felt a lot cleaner than other social media networks (SMNs). I liked the simplicity of it and, over time, it grew to feel a hell of a lot less creepy than Facebook. I've grown to not really be a huge fan of social media, if only because I think it encourages oversharing (and that's what this blog is for... lol). At present you can find me on Twitter and... that's pretty much it at present, though I am going to try and work up a website for almost everything I write.
Having been beguiled (finally) into watching Game of Thrones and discovering that I've either grown up enough to want to watch it, or that being in a different place makes it more appealing, I am currently bounding through the series, late to the party, and find myself at the start of season 6. This post is a set of thoughts and feelings about some of what's going on, really just conjecture on my part, so if this has been addressed later on in the series, please don’t spoil it for me. Having got in trouble with my partner for looking up when Ramsey Bolton dies, I’m not going Googling about anything else… well except maybe a map because the way the world's displayed in the opening titles confuses me at to where a lot of things are. Before I begin... Warning: I may be overthinking this. Warning: this is pretty much full frontal nerdity Warning: I may be working for the department of the bleeding obvious. One thing I like about Game of Thrones is that i...